


My Boy

by Witete



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: 3+1, Angst, Ashes Scene in Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, NOT A SHIP FIC I REPEAT NOT A SHIP FIC, Panic Attacks, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 02:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20074807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Witete/pseuds/Witete
Summary: Look well, look far, my boy; you hold the galaxy in your eyes.OR Three times that Peter hugged Tony, and one time where it was the other way around.





	My Boy

**Author's Note:**

> sorry that this took far too fucking long
> 
> also to answer your question yes i am still sad about endgame and to answer your other question no i will never acknowledge it thank you for your time
> 
> enjoy the fic boyos! also requests are loosely open (i need another project gimme another project)

**1.**

“What’re you doing?”

Peter winced slightly as the man sitting to his right spoke, lightly tapping the phone in Peter’s hand with a flippant gesture. Tony looked up at Peter, a small, but genuine smirk spread across his face. “Makin’ a little video diary?”

Peter looked at the billionaire for a few moments, cheeks heated with embarrassment, before he gave a nervous chuckle and an even more nervous smile. “Y-yeah,” he said, hesitantly.

“No, s’alright,” Tony instantly soothes, his cheeky grin turning into something a little softer and brighter, the sight making Peter sigh in relief. “I’d probably do the same-”

“I told him not to do it,” Happy interrupted from the driver’s seat, looking between the boy and Tony through the rearview mirror. His brows were furrowed, and his lips were pulled in a tight line, obviously disgruntled that he had to explain Peter’s obsessive documenting to his boss. Peter felt his smile start to fall.

“I’m gonna wipe the chip,” Happy continued and, before Peter could even feel the lurching sadness in that comment, Tony interrupted his driver.

“Hey, hey, hey, you know what?” Tony said, waving his hand slightly in Happy’s direction before focusing back onto Peter. “We should actually- we should make an alibi video for your aunt anyway. You ready?”

Peter barely had time to raise his phone up and inquire about Tony’s request before the man ushered him into the frame and began speaking.

“Okay.” Tony took a quick breath and his smile sharpened. “Hey May? How’re you doing? What’re you wearing? Something skimpy I hope-”

Peter’s flush intensified as Tony lost his sentence to quiet giggles. Tony hung his head in what almost seemed guilty had it not been for the laugh lines cut into the skin of his face. Peter stared at Tony, bubbles of apprehension in his chest before Tony quieted and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. His smile was still wide, but graces of apology softened his features.

“Sorry,” he said. “That was inappropriate. Let’s start over. You can edit it.”

Peter scoffed, just barely managing to suppress an eye-roll, before offering another quiet affirmation as Tony moved into frame again.

Tony counted down from three and smiled again. “Hey May! My gosh, uh, wanted to tell you what an incredible job your nephew did this weekend at the Stark Internship retreat. Everyone was impressed-”

Peter barely had time to register, let alone appreciate the compliment before the pair lurched forwards in their seats ever so slightly and Happy honked the horn of the car.

“C’mon!” Happy grumbled at the supposedly faulty driver.

Tony huffed and fell back into his seat, giving Happy a pointed look through the reflection of the rearview mirror.

“It’s a friggin’ merge, I’m-” Happy said, clearly flustered.

Tony interrupted once again. “This is because you’re not on Queens’ Boulevard.”

Without missing a beat and with laser-like precision, Tony turned back towards the phone, which Peter was heavily debating whether to put down or not.

“See Happy is hoping to get bumped up to, uh, asset management. He was forehead of security and before that he was just a driver.”

Peter suppressed a chuckle as Happy leaned back towards Tony, his voice low and menacing. Tony wasn’t fazed though; coupled with the low tone of voice and the wide, betrayed eyes, Happy looked nothing more than a frustrated babysitter that had figured out that the kid had outsmarted him.

“This-” Happy swallowed. “This is a private conversation.”

Tony snorted.

Happy’s gaze sharpened. “I don’t like joking about this; it was hard enough for me to talk to _you_ about it.”

“I heard you fell asleep on the plane,” Tony sneered before turning to Peter, who was trying very hard not to crack a smile at the bickering men. “No seriously, was he snorin’ a bunch or-?”

“Okay,” Happy bit. The car lurched to a jarring halt, the wheels squeaking slightly across the asphalt. “Here.”

Tony simply laughed at Happy’s reaction while Peter’s smile finally cracked, albeit in a nervous “is-this-normal?” way.

“Hey Hap?” Tony said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened - which confirmed Peter’s suspicions rather quickly - and he gave a small glance at Peter. “Can you give us a moment?”

Happy turned to face Tony again with the flattest look that Peter thought he had ever seen. “You want me to leave the car?”

Tony, predictably, was unperturbed. “Why don’t you grab Peter’s case out of the trunk?”

Happy may have rolled his eyes or grumbled something less than savory as he opened the driver’s side door with a _pop, _but Peter was too latched onto the words that Tony had said, that he lowered his phone in shock.

“I- I can keep the suit?” he breathed, wondered and awed that he was even having this conversation at all. After having assumed that Tony would just keep it in his possession for if and when he wanted Peter’s participation in any excursion, the idea of being able to keep the suit for himself stunned Peter.

“Yeah, it’s what we were just talking about,” Tony said swiftly, either not noticing or not acknowledging the blatant shock on Peter’s face.

Not meeting Peter’s eyes, Tony’s lips quirked, he put his sunglasses on (even though it was dark outside), and he cleared his throat. “Do me a favor though: Happy’s kinda your point guy on this, so don’t stress him out. Don’t do anything stupid- I’ve seen his cardiogram. Alright, yeah?”

Peter nodded, maybe too vigorously. “Yeah! Yes.”

Tony then met Peter’s eyes, but the intensity and other emotions in Tony’s eyes were lost on Peter. Something was there that the boy couldn’t quite reach. Tony was speaking before Peter’s brain could stew on the idea.

“Don’t do anything I would do. And definitely don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. There’s- there’s a little grey area in there and that’s where you operate.”

But Peter was barely listening at the odd and seemingly haunting contradictions Tony listed before the spontaneous, fast-paced area of his brain lit up in shocking realization.

“Wha- does that mean I’m an Aven-”

“No,” was Tony’s quick, tight-lipped response and Peter couldn’t help but deflate at the knee-jerk reaction from his childhood hero.

Happy was knocking on Peter’s window before the boy could attempt to plead his case to his mentor.

Happy hefted the case into Peter’s view past the tinted door windows. “This it?”

“7th floor,” came Tony’s voice.

Peter looked back at Mr. Stark for a split moment before shaking his head slightly in Happy’s direction, waving at the driver with a flippant hand. “I can take it. You don’t have to take it up.”

“You gonna take it?” Happy confirmed with raised eyebrows. And as Peter stuttered out an affirmative, Happy’s gaze shifted over Peter’s shoulder and his gaze flatlined. “Thank you,” he said with a huff as he set the case down by the door and moved to stand guard by the driver’s side door.

Peter felt more than saw Tony’s cheeky grin as the boy turned back to the man, giddiness in his eyes. “So, when’s our next – when’s our next– “ Peter raised his hands, ignoring but still noticing the slight raise in Tony’s eyebrows as he crooked his first two fingers on each hand. “’-retreat,’ you know? Like– “

Something snapped over Tony’s slightly obscured face, and the quick change made Peter’s heart stutter a little. “What? Next mission?”

Peter hesitated for a moment before he gave a one-sided shrug and a faint, hopeful smile. “Y-yeah, the mission.”

“We’ll call you,” was Tony’s answer.

Peter’s smile was replaced with a confused frown. “...do you have my number?”

“No. I mean _we’ll _call you. Like someone will call you,” Tony said, like that clarified anything at all.

“Oh,” was the only response that Peter could come up with before Tony gave a hesitant – and fake, Peter observed – smile.

“Alright?” the billionaire said before moving into Peter’s personal space and reaching behind him.

In a split moment of raw instinct and a recollection of social cues that Peter swore he knew like the back of his hand, the boy reflected the gesture, wrapping his arms around Tony’s back. It felt…odd, Peter supposed; impersonal, like someone was one step behind him in a dance. It wasn’t bad, though, if but a little ill-timed, Peter surmised, until Tony froze under him, his back muscles going rigid.

“Oh, that’s not a hug,” Tony said quickly. “I’m just grabbing the door for ya."

"Oh,” Peter said intelligently – again – releasing Tony as if he had been wrapped up in barbed wire, feeling incredibly awkward and foolish. He didn’t meet Iron Man’s eyes as he turned around to head out the door and away from whatever the hell any of that was.

“Yeah, we’re not…” Tony hesitated, and Peter heard him swallow – nervously, Peter might add with a bit of disbelief – before adding, barely above a mutter “…there yet.”

Peter looked back at the man sitting beside him, studying, waiting for him to look at him or gesture or say anything else that might have a chance at fixing the past fifteen seconds of both of their lives. Tony remained resolute, though, looking at the back of the passenger’s seat through his tinted glasses, not giving Peter any indication that he’d seen him staring.

Another moment passed and Peter just released a huff of air that only he could hear, and he turned away, stepping out of the vehicle and into the muggy Queens air. Happy was still waiting like a gargoyle at the driver’s side door, staring at Peter with a raised brow and an expression that he could not read. Peter gave him a hasty, surely red-faced smile, before picking up his luggage sat on the street. Peter turned back to say something to Happy, but he was already clambering into the driver’s seat, shutting the door with a resolute slam.

The car hummed to life, and Peter saw Tony look up and at him. The billionaire gave another sharp and toothy smile, sending a quick “bye” Peter’s way before the car revved and squealed off down the street. It took a sharp turn right, and Peter could hear it hum for a few blocks until the sound of the city swallowed them up.

Peter blinked, looked down at his luggage, and bit his lip to stifle a smile. “There gonna call me,” he said to no one in particular because, hey! They were gonna call Spider-Man when they needed him. If he was going to take anything from that conversation, it was that, and not the strange, foreign-yet-not feeling deep inside his chest as he turned to cross the street to his apartment complex.

Words were easy to explain – written in stone and resolute. The soft ache he felt the moment Tony brushed past his shoulder was not so easily explained. So, without conscious thought, he locked the moment away and buried it.

**2.**

Turns out, hanging out with Iron Man was fucking awesome.

It wasn’t like hanging out with Iron Man _wouldn’t_ be awesome, by any stretch of the imagination, but imagining it and experiencing it were two massively different beasts. Where Peter imagined loud Black Sabbath and the whirrs of motors and machinery, maybe the loud explosion or two, there certainly was. The culmination of his enjoyment, however, stemmed from Tony’s occasional singing that he thought the enhanced boy wouldn’t be able to hear or the way that Tony bickered at his robots and _they bickered back. _Peter’s enjoyment stemmed from the fact that they could let go, laughing until their stomachs hurt, fixing armors or weapons, or simply doing their own things in each other’s presence. It was easier than Peter thought it was going to be.

Until it wasn’t.

Hindsight is 20/20, Peter always seemed to forget, but it was especially damning when that lack of foresight was probably dancing in front of his eyes the whole time. Maybe if he had known, truly, intimately known, what was going on behind his mentor’s eyes, maybe things could have been different. Maybe if he had not ignored what was more than a hiccup in a heartbeat, or an intake of air that was more of a gasp than a breathless inhale, maybe he would’ve caught on sooner. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise, but Peter was more focused on his own choked words and Tony’s rattling lungs than anything else.

The Saturday started normally, as most bad days tend to do. Peter procrastinated on his English essay, just like he said he wasn’t going to do, so he vowed to work on that over at the Compound upstate before helping Mr. Stark alter the plating on the Mark XLVII. Happy came, picked Peter up from his apartment, made absolutely zero responses at Peter’s attempts at small talk - which, honestly, Peter found hilarious – and arrived at the vast, depressingly vacant Compound, and meandered his way downstairs to the workshop.

He paused at the glass door, listening to the muffled Led Zeppelin, before waving kindly at F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s security camera and walking in when the door opened with a soft _snick. _

The sound when Peter entered the workshop was damn near _thunderous. _Between _Immigrant Song _and the harsh grinding noise of the buzz-saw somewhere in the room, Peter was surprised that Tony could hear, let alone think. Peter had barely spent two seconds in the workshop, and it was already borderline unbearable.

Peter gestured to one of F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s overheads to turn the music down, lest his eardrums burst. Not only did she turn the music down, she completely shut it off, the silence filling the space like a void. The lone singing voice cut off with a very emphatic “_fuck!”_ and something metallic fell to the concrete floor.

“Peter Parker, if that’s you,” came Tony’s voice, raised to be heard over the kid’s peals of laughter_. _“And if you think you’re still going to be working on an Iron Man suit after this, you are sorely mistaking, mister.”

“Dude,” Peter laughed, following the sound of Tony’s playfully cross mutterings. “How do you even listen to music that loud? How does Ms. Potts not kill you?”

“For God sakes, kid. Would it kill you to call her ‘Pepper?’ Like, given that she is my fiancé and given the fact that she has told you many-a-time to call her Pepper?”

Peter rounded the corner and saw Tony at a cluttered workstation, a husk of a silver-plated Iron Man thigh lain flayed on the table beneath his hands. Wires like veins coiled from beneath the plates as a computer next to Tony read off code quicker than Peter could even comprehend. His mentor looked slightly fatigued, but otherwise okay, a few streaks of oil and small contact burns littering his hands. Despite the apparent tiredness, his eyes were bright and lucid, full of the manic energy that Ms. Potts frequently warned Peter about. Peter could almost see the cogs inside his brain running at over-capacity.

“Yes, it would kill me yes. I think if I said her name more than once, Beetlejuice would pop out and rip my head off, or something,” Peter said, smiling as he made his way over to Tony.

Mr. Stark’s nose screwed up for a moment before he started laughing. “I’m going to tell Pepper that you literally just compared her to one of Tim Burton’s creepiest characters to date and see if she still lets you call her Pepper after that.”

“I will literally off myself if you do.”

Tony’s eyes darkened slightly in warning, but the smirk didn’t fall off his face. “Are you always this dramatic?”

“What can I say?” Peter said, sitting next to Tony on a stool. He then made a face of mock disgust. “I think I get it from you.”

Tony copied Peter’s wrinkled nose and upturned lips. “That’s probably the worst thing you could’ve said to me.”

Peter laughed. “Why?”

“Because,” Tony drawled. “There’s only room for one drama queen in this house, and it’s me.”

“Self-proclaimed diva.” Peter nodded. “Fitting.”

Tony raised his eyebrows incredulously and looked at Peter for a few moments, his eyes exuding energy like a pair of nuclear reactors. The intensity struck a momentary bolt of concern through Peter’s heart, but he was happier to see Tony alight with energy than not, the memories of a robotic, hauntingly quiet Tony working mindlessly on the same thing for hours too poisonous for Peter to simmer on for too long. So, Peter raised his eyes in response, trying to clear up any surprise or concern from his features, and looked at Tony flatly. “So, what are we working on?”

Clearly, that wasn’t a question Tony had been expecting because his gaze lost its lucidity for a split moment, a vague aura of confusion muddling his features. “Uh.” He blew air from pursed lips, eyes darting around the space. He looked down at his hands, halfway sunken into snagging coils of wire and smooth, silver plating. He would’ve gestured loosely, but given those appendages were busy, he flicked his head in a vague direction. He seemed to have forgotten where he was and what he was doing. It looked like a gear had slipped. “I mean, I’m working on –“ he hesitated. “– this, so you can either help here or rummage around somewhere and do whatever.”

“Oh…kay,” Peter said. He waited a moment, swallowed, and decided to stick his whole foot in the waters instead of just a toe. “You okay, Mr. Stark?”

“Fine,” Tony said way too quickly to have any kind of thought attached. Tony looked back down at his hands, staring, clearly trying to figure out what the fuck he was just doing.

Peter shifted in his stool, feeling a dual punch of both concern and guilt as he watched Tony go stock-still, minute tremors running through his arms. Peter couldn’t see his hands, but he could imagine that they were shaking too. Peter resisted the urge to reach out and touch Tony, maybe attempt to coax him out of whatever weird funk this was, but he didn’t, fearing that that may do more bad than good.

So, he waited.

Eventually – eventually being about another half a minute – the fog cleared from Mr. Stark’s eyes and he looked back down at the metal beneath his hands, continuing his work without a word to Peter. Not keen on disrupting whatever weird work ethic vibe his mentor was sporting today, the boy slipped quietly off the stool and made his way to one of the other wide worktables in the corner of the room, situated in a way where he could keep an eye on Tony – just to be conversational, Peter told his anxiety; she didn’t seem to agree. He sat down on the stool, giving DUM-E a gentle pat on the claw when the machine nudged him. Peter could see U sitting in her charging station in the far corner of the room. She had a dent in her chassis. The boy frowned and he stopped petting DUM-E.

The bot complained and nudged him again, demanding attention like a hungry cat. “Okay, bud, okay,” Peter said, offering a soft but distracted laugh as he resumed his pats. He ran his fingers down DUM-E’s appendage, stopping short when his fingers dipped on the otherwise straight-edged surface. As if the little robot had nerve endings, he let out an unpleasant sound, like the low-pitched grate of dial-up connecting. Peter snatched his hands away from the robot, startled and concerned.

“Apologies, Mr. Parker,” came F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s gentle, but strangely clinical voice. “He is in need of repair.”

Peter blinked. “It sounded like it hurt?”

F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s response was amused, but it carried a slight edge. “He is simply alerting you of damage to dissuade further mishaps and to encourage repair.”

Peter glanced once again at U before looking at DUM-E’s claws. “What happened to him?”

“Don’t answer that,” came Tony’s voice, short and snappish and slightly breathless.

Peter whipped his gaze up to look at Tony, but the man still had his eyes turned downwards, shoulders hunched and body screaming concentration.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. seemed to obey because she didn’t say anything, but the silence that befell her was answer enough.

Peter almost swallowed his questioning and slightly hurt response, but he couldn’t quite get it down. “Mr. Stark, what happened?”

No response.

Peter felt his heart start to pound. He felt like he could feel Tony’s heartbeat increase as well.

“Mr. Stark,” the boy said, his feet shifting nervously on the bar of his stool. “You’re scaring me.”

That seemed to get Tony’s attention because the next words out of his mouth were: “Ross called.”

Like a cruel man’s plot twist, it was Peter’s turn to be startled by unexpected sentences. “I’m…not sure what that means,” he responded honestly.

Peter knew who Ross was, sure – assuming that was Thaddeus Ross, the Secretary of State, the dude that MJ insisted was responsible for the “shitstorm situation that was the Accords” – but why that had anything to do with anything went miles over Peter’s head. The Rogue Avengers were who knows where, and there have only been minor domestic occurrences, most of which decidedly did not involve Iron Man. Peter couldn’t quite fathom what that man could be bitching about, but the mother of assholes was always pregnant, Peter supposed.

Peter was jarred from his thoughts when Tony moved sharply, swiping his hands across the desk in a violent horizontal stride, the bits of metal and coils of wire crashing to the floor with a sound loud enough to nearly make Peter’s ears ring. DUM-E startled as well, jolting away from Peter, scrambling away with a series of high-pitched beeps escaping his voice box. He moved to the far side of the room, clear of Tony’s unexpected outburst. Peter, so perturbed by the visceral response, froze in his stool, his mouth dry and his sixth sense going absolutely batshit.

After the entire table was cleared by a few more violent swats of scarred, shaking fists, Tony froze, hands held just about a foot from his face, palms up, and he stared, as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Maybe he didn’t, because he then let out the most broken laugh Peter had ever heard in his life, before burying his face in his hands, laughter quickly turning into throaty moans which further devolved into sharp, rattling gasps of air. Those sounds had Peter bolting out of his stool and stumbling into Tony’s worktable, ignoring when the lights in the workshop dimmed significantly.

Peter didn’t panic, but it was a near thing. “W- F.R.I.D.A.Y. what’s happening?” he shouted, hands outstretched, nervous to touch. Tony seemed to sense Peter next to him, and with movements that nearly made Peter cry out in his borderline panic, he scrambled off his stool, wobbling a few steps away on unsteady legs before collapsing to his knees, his hands still obscuring his face. His back curved, his shoulders moving upwards, and his head dipped low. He looked like he was begging for mercy.

Now, Peter felt like panicking. Still, he held it together long enough to kneel in front of Tony’s prone form, hands hovering once again.

“Boss is currently experiencing a panic attack,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. responded, her voice carrying a sense of concern that should be impossible for an A.I. to have. “Please remove nearby sharp objects and make sure he is physically stable.”

With quick and shaking movements, Peter did a wide swipe of the floor with his hands, making sure that any tools or silver shards of metal were out of reach before he returned to his spot on the floor. Peter awaited further instructions because, well, Tony was either going to dip lower which would cause him to devolve into a wretched child’s pose or fall to the side, so Peter stayed where he was. He still didn’t touch him. Even in the low light, Peter could see the tremors running up and down Tony’s spine like violent fever chills. The low keening sounds that his mentor was making made Peter’s belly coil with empathic agony.

Peter swallowed down the panic that kept trying to claw its way out of his throat, and took a shuddering breath. “What now?”

“I’m afraid to say it’s a gamble now, Peter,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. said and Peter felt like his neck was laying on a wooden block, the whisper of sharpened metal brushing past the hairs on his neck. “His positive-negative response to physical contact is 50/50 with negligible error. Response to ‘5-to-1’ technique is lower, shy of 20% positive-response rate if verbally responsive.”

“Unresponsive?”

“5%.”

_Screw it, _Peter thought, his hands finally landing on the pair of shaking shoulders in front of him. Tony didn’t flinch or wrench himself away from Peter’s touch, which was a small mercy, but the problem was that he didn’t react at all: he kept his head in his hands, smothering his sobs, body sinking slowly lower as if being hopelessly crushed by a scavenger’s daughter.

“Oh my God, Mr. Stark,” Peter gasped, not realizing that he was crying until he tasted salt on his quivering lips. Then, acting on raw impulse rather than rational, selfish thoughts of self-preservation, he wrapped his arms around Tony, securing him as tight as he dared, and waited.

Nothing happened for a few long, tantalizing moments. Tony continued to shake and sniff, the muscles in his shoulders and back so rigid that they felt like rock under Peter’s arms. The boy tucked his nose into his mentor’s shoulder, shutting his eyes tightly, and breathed, trying to concentrate on Tony’s cologne rather than the rapid – and irregular, anxiety reminded gleefully – beating of his heart. The room was dark and quiet. Peter thought that maybe he heard F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s overhead speakers crackle slightly, almost as if she was ready to jump in if need be. DUM-E was off somewhere. U was blissfully asleep.

Peter couldn’t stand that quiet, especially when the loudest sounds in the room were that of breathless, agonized panic. So, he filled it the best way he knew how.

“I don’t know if I told you,” Peter said, the sound of his own hoarse and frightened voice startling the boy. Tony still didn’t react, but Peter lowered his voice anyways. “But I absolutely aced my biology exam. I was shocked I did, if I’m honest. Neurotransmitters and hormones and junk like that kinda fly over my head. Viruses are cool, but that was the last unit. Can’t wait to get into the macro – like the body as a whole. Or evolution. There’s a kid in my class who doesn’t believe in evolution, did you know that? My bio teacher spent the whole period arguing with him; it was awesome.”

And it went like that for the better part of ten minutes. Peter was halfway through explaining a fan theory behind _The Last of Us _before the body in his arms released a heavy sigh and the muscles uncoiled. The moment Tony moved, Peter’s one-sided conversation ceased.

“You…you okay, Mr. Stark?” Peter said quietly, his words just a small stream of air through the still darkness.

“Mm, I guess a fungus is feasible,” Tony muttered, and Peter felt the panic dissolve in his chest. “M’specially since it already exists in…in ants. Gotta tell that ant-guy…uh, Scott. Yeah, Scott.”

Peter sighed, giving permission for any god to strike him down if Tony gave a normal answer to anything ever. “I think Mr. Scott would be king of the apocalypse if he could control infested ants. The power he would have.”

“Mm.”

“Seriously, Tony, are you all right?”

“Been better,” was the response and Peter could give him kudos for not just brushing it off. “Also is this what’ll get you to call me ‘Tony?’”

“This is an outlier,” Peter said. “Never again. Maybe_ you’re_ Beetlejuice.”

“I resent that.”

A few more moments passed. Peter just listened to Tony’s breathing continue to even out.

“Also,” Tony said, and Peter felt him roll his shoulders beneath his hands. “What are you doing?”

_Was it not obvious? _Peter thought, both saddened and embarrassed by the question. “I’m hugging you? It’s um…if May ever gets sad about Ben, this helps her. I, well, I hoped it may help you too.”

Tony made another noncommittal sound, but he didn’t move away from Peter’s embrace. That made the kid feel somewhat more confident in his choices.

“Is there –“ Peter hesitated. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

Tony tensed minutely. Peter waited.

“Ross called two nights ago,” Tony began, the wording making Peter’s blood run chilly. If Tony was just now panicking about this call from Ross, how long was he stewing on it? How many other attacks had he had? Was this fiery, wired work ethic a way to cope against it? Peter’s blood ran colder.

“He said…. well, I’m not gonna tell you what we talked about, but I…_reacted, _and did something I shouldn’t have.”

The dent in U’s chassis. The gouge in DUM-E’s arm. Peter felt a pang of sympathy and hugged Tony a little harder.

“I can hear you thinking,” Tony laughed, though the sound was breathless and hateful – towards himself, Peter noted. “I meant to fix them but looking at what I did just reminded me of that phone call. I should’ve called you…told you not to come.”

“Well,” Peter hummed. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

Tony didn’t respond but Peter could understand the language well enough.

“If you want,” Peter said. “I can help you fix them. I’m sure they’d appreciate that.”

“I can’t promise not to panic.”

“But I can promise to help you.”

Another pause. Tony rolled his shoulders, hard this time, making it clear that Peter’s hug was no longer necessary. It didn’t bother the boy in the slightest. He retracted his arms.

  
  
**3.**

“Tony,” the wizard rasped, his scared eyes wide and stark against the dirt and blood caking his face. His hands were shaking. Tony met Strange’s raw gaze, wincing as his stomach rolled.

Strange’s throat bobbed, clearly struggling to get his words out. “There was no other way.”

Then, he too, vanished into dust, succumbing to the same fate as the Guardians that had stood on the red dirt of Titan just moments before.

It felt like the earth was opening up beneath Tony’s feet, teeth gnashing, maw black and flaked with dirt and bits of moon, moments away from crunching down and crushing Tony’s body between powerful jaws. He felt like that if he strained, he could hear the growls of whatever creature his fears were trying to conjure up in attempt to rationalize what was happening. Maybe it was easier to imagine that it was a soulless, faithless, dumb creature that had somehow ground everybody to dust, and not a fate that some faraway whisper had promised since New York. _We’ve come to collect our debt, _a large space leviathan moaned, blackened eyes rolling hungrily into scarred grey skin. The growl turned into a familiar drawl, a drawl that solidified a promise, a fate that Tony feared more than anything. The faraway leviathan ghost grinned, and Iron Man’s blue eyes glinted off its teeth, stained with the black of his nightmares.

_The worst part is that you didn’t._

Tony stood in the midst of it all. His entire body was shaking, and his fresh wound was aching. There was no evidence that there had been anybody else on the wretched planet moments before, their bodies darkening the already murky red sky.

The blue alien’s eyes roved, gaze alight with a type of terror and gut-wrenching understanding that Tony felt intimately, and it made his stomach drop even more when he turned to Peter.

Tony thought that the kid had maybe said something because he was looking at Tony with a furious intensity, eyes blown wide and dark. Then, Tony noticed that Peter was cradling his stomach with both arms, shoulders hunched as if in pain, face blanched and drawn. Tony made an aborted step towards the kid, a myriad of different concerns and thoughts and fears blowing through his mind at top speed, before Peter said something that made Tony stop altogether.

“I don’t feel so good.”

The jaws beneath Tony’s feet snapped shut. He could feel his organs getting crushed beneath the relentless pressure of the leviathan’s mouth, teeth grinding against his bones, sawing against his skull. _Kill me, _he thought, his entire body going numb. His lungs popped; there was no more air. _Please just kill me._

“You’re all right,” Tony said instead, or maybe it was the ghost of him because the words came out so steady, so sure that whatever this was was just a passing ailment, a blip, a mistake. He didn’t feel real; he didn’t feel alive.

_Doctor, I can’t tell if I’m not me._

But he, whatever he was, was present and standing before a kid, his kid, who was stumbling towards him on wobbling legs, tumbling vernacular of fear and denial painting the world redder. “I don’t – I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t – “

The begging plea was cut off as Peter collapsed into Tony, desperate arms wrapping around Tony’s neck. The boy’s hands grappled at his shirt, gathering the material into shaking fists, and he buried his head into Tony’s shoulder, begs and pleas rushing out of his mouth, a levee busted during a hurricane.

And Tony couldn’t do anything, couldn’t _say _anything as Peter begged for his life. Tony felt like _he _was the one holding the gun to Peter’s head; like _he _was the one who turned everybody to dust; like he was the leviathan everyone feared. He held his kid in his arms.

He wasn’t one to pray. Never had been. But his Mom had, and he let her voice wash over him, her eyes closed, smile faint, hands folded, voice gentle and reverent while her son watched and listened.

_Hail Mary, full of grace-_

Peter’s weight soon became too much for Tony to bear, and both pairs of legs gave way, both of them slipping further into the throat of the planet. Peter landed hard on his back, head smacking into the rock beneath him, but he barely seemed to notice, his eyes wide, but wandering wayside, like he could see something beyond. Tony grasped Peter’s shoulder and it was the only thing that felt real.

Peter’s eyes slid over and met Tony’s, any remnants of physical pain gouged out, replaced with an accepting sorrow that made the boy’s eyes age before Tony’s very eyes.

“I’m sorry,” the boy choked. The shoulder beneath Tony’s hand gave way.

The rock that grazed Tony’s fingers as his hand dipped down felt as cold as Death’s kiss, and the hot breeze that swept the red debris was even colder.

Peter looked at Tony for a few moments more, gaze imploring and afraid. Like the sun moving behind thunderheads, the light in the boy’s eyes dimmed and blackened as his gaze slid away from Tony, brows relaxing, tears freezing like ice on his face. Dust cracked across the boy like wretched poetry, and the next moment, he was gone, gentle smiles and bright, intelligent eyes of no protection against a leviathan’s hateful caress.

Tony’s body lurched forwards, unsupported by the boy whose body was nothing but flakes of ash, fluttering away without a care of who they once were. He could almost feel the ashes caking his palms, gritty under his fingernails, his lungs choking on corpses.

Tony sat back on his legs, eyes gazing at his blackened, upturned palms. Maybe, once upon a time, it could be oil or paint. It could’ve been some prank, some eye-roll worthy joke pulled while he was dead asleep on the couch in the workshop. But, no, his hands are stained with it. Stained with the memory of his failures, of the murder he wrought since the moment he took over his father’s business. Marked with promises of inevitable folly, mistake after momentous mistake, made in vain for a world who never listened. Cursed with a wide third eye, straining against a torrent of blinding cold shoulders and boiling self-hate.

_Cassandra, sister, we’ve both cried out. My, what careless world we’ve got._

_Midas, king of gold; am I your ancestor? Do your ore palaces reek of soot?_

_When did you retire, Atlas, and leave your sacred job for me?_

“He won,” the blue alien said. Tony closed his eyes, still feeling the warmth from a young boy’s embrace wound around his neck. He bent his head down, smothered his mouth with tainted hands, and cried.

**+1**

Something whacked Tony in his back, knocking the wind out of him, and sent him flying. F.R.I.D.A.Y. tried her best to orientate the horizon line in front of Tony’s eyes, but the velocity was too fast, too intense, and he hit the rocky ground with a metallic thud almost an instant later, body cracking the stone beneath his chest. Groggy and slightly foggy eyed from the intense blackout he had experienced just about 25 minutes prior, he whirled around onto his back, and scrambled up to an elbow, trying to make out the looming figure in front of him. The creature, scaly and dark with size that could match Hulk, was nearly on top of him, his bulk probably contributing to how dark Tony’s vision seemed to be.

Tony extended his arms towards the figure, the same figure that had once given him hell when Tony’s fears had been confirmed more than five years ago, and powerful, blue-tinged pseudo-guns melded from the nano particles. He fired them, blue blasts pelting the creature’s scraggly skin. The impacts did nothing and the creature raised its arms.

Tony fired again, this time in its right shoulder, and the creature jolted back, snarling in frustration more than pain. Tony geared up to fire again, but the creature’s shoulder jolted back once more, and this time, the force was enough to send the massive monstrosity flailing backwards, arms pinwheeling in attempt to right itself. The efforts deemed fruitless and the creature crashed to the ground with a thud. Tony didn’t have enough time to rationalize what had happened before Scott’s super-sized foot came into view, landing perfectly to crush the soot-stained beast beneath his sole.

When Scott moved away, albeit slowly which made Tony’s heart pound in his throat, the creature stayed unmoved, chest cavity concaved to match the curve of Ant-Man’s boot.

Tony almost felt relieved to have that particular bastard taken care of, but he was too wired and too wildly close to fear to feel anything close. Scared and feeling dull ripples of pain move like water through his entire body, he made no attempt to get up, trying to gather his wits before drawing any kind of attention to himself.

Then, someone stood up on a rocky outcropping, towering over the creature’s crumpled bulk. Instinctually, Tony was guarded, forcing his arms to move to at least sit himself up into a less vulnerable position, until he saw how small and scrawny the figure was. The being was all limb as it jumped towards him, legs crooking and back bending into a pose that was so familiar it made Tony’s chest ache from something other than the pain.

But something about the orange glow behind the silhouette, the boyish but subtly muscled form, the bright, mechanical, ovular eyes that stared at Tony with an energetic recognition, topped off with a slightly breathless “Hey!” as he made his way towards Iron Man, made a surge of emotion flow through Tony’s entire being.

Something stronger than the watery pain.

Tony swore that, just for a moment, he was at peace.

“Holy cow,” Peter breathed, the mask retracting to reveal his pale face, slightly bruised and bloody, but otherwise untouched from time and dust and war. Once Peter was close enough, the boy reached down, grasping Tony’s forearms with a firm grip, hauling the Iron Man to his feet. Tony felt like he hadn’t blinked since he recognized the boy, completely enraptured. If it weren’t for Peter’s hands grasping his body and for Peter’s incessant rambling, Tony would’ve thought it was a rouse, a joke; some cruel vision conjured by whatever enemy was folded within Thanos’ ranks swarming the space around them.

And for a long few moments, everything else faded away as Tony looked at the boy, his boy, breathing and whole. Nothing else mattered and in that split moment, Tony realized that he made the right choice.

_All of this, _Tony thought, his own words to Pepper flowing back through him, the time between then and now forgotten. _Came from you._

Peter, blind to the absolute look of genuine adoration that Tony knows he must be sporting, kept speaking, eyes alight and hands gesticulating.

“You remember we were in space,” Peter said, as if Tony could possibly forget. “and I got all dusty? And, I must’a passed out because I woke up and you were gone, but Doctor Strange was there, right? And he –“

Tony, at this point, was barely listening to the words that the boy was saying. He was simply relishing in the sound of Peter’s voice, the boyish lilt of his vernacular, the way his throat moved, the way his eyes creased, just…taking in everything that was Peter, looking at him, memorizing, as if it was the last time he would see him.

The same surge of protective, overbearing love he had for Morgan, the urge to keep her close and touch her face and look in her eyes and see the future swirling in them – promises tinging the edges of her irises, untapped potential – surged through him now as he looked at Peter, still talking as if nothing bad could ever happen.

_Out of everybody fighting to keep our world safe, I’m glad that you’re one of them._

Tony moved towards the boy, who was busy mimicking one of Strange’s stupid hand gestures, made a low sound in his throat – maybe a sound that was meant to be a word, Iron Man himself didn’t know – and wrapped his arms around Peter, slotting them over his shoulders in as much of a gentle caress as he could with a heavy metal suit encasing him.

“What are you doing?” Peter said, the question stringing loosely along with the end of whatever other sentence he had been saying. It must take a moment for Peter to realize what Tony was doing, because for a brief second, he froze, as if dumbfounded that this could ever happen. Tony felt it and squeezed harder, not trusting his voice to deliver the message he so wanted to send. He hoped maybe the moment would be enough.

Peter then sighed, a light and warm and trusting sound, and returned the gesture, grasping Tony’s back with strong, dustless hands. He melted into the embrace.

Tony opened his eyes and gazed up at the cloudy, smoggy sky, staring at a single patch of sunlight that seemed to escape the dark, rolling clouds. Silently, he said thank you. He didn’t know who he was thanking, who he was looking for, but it felt good to think it; like something aligned. Like that single patch of sun was all he needed to go on.

Gently, he turned his face, closed his eyes, and pressed his lips to the side of Peter’s head. If the boy was bothered by it, he didn’t show it. In fact, Tony thought that maybe Peter squeezed his back just a little bit tighter. “This is nice,” Peter whispered.

And, for the first time since Morgan was born, Tony’s tears were happy.

**Author's Note:**

> ghhhgnnn im sad


End file.
